Back at the track today, Keselowski again made his way to Victory Lane.
And he again began to think about a Sprint Cup title.

Keselowski, a Rochester Hills native, led a career-best and race-high 232 laps, then held off Daytona 500 winner Matt Kenseth on a late restart to cruise to his first victory of the season.

“What can I say? I love Bristol and Bristol loves me,” said Keselowski, who immediately began taking pictures in Victory Lane to send to Twitter.

“The goal at Penske Racing is to win a Sprint Cup championship, and one win certainly doesn’t achieve that, but it’s a great step.”

The Chase for the Sprint Cup championship has a wild-card provisional for the winningest driver not otherwise eligible. Keselowski’s win at Bristol last August was his third of the season and gave him the provisional that allowed him to race for the title.

Now, just a month into the season, he’s focused on collecting victories.

“One win is good; two wins is really good,” Keselowski said. “We need to keep winning races to lock ourselves in the Chase, but heck, I’d rather just go into the Chase in the top spot. If we run like we have the last few weeks, we’ve got as good a shot as anybody else.”

Keselowski narrowly escaped an early seven-car accident, worked his way toward the front, then settled in for a tight battle with Kenseth over the final third of the race. Kenseth beat Keselowski on one of their restarts — fans complained instantly on Twitter that Kenseth had jumped the start — and Keselowski had to run him back down to reclaim the lead.

But a late caution when Tony Stewart hit the wall put Keselowski’s win in jeopardy.

“I’ve got no clue what to do here,” he radioed crew chief Paul Wolfe, who decided to leave Keselowski on the track and not bring him in to the pits under caution.

Then Keselowski had to decide which lane to choose for the final restart, and his decision to take the outside may have sealed the win.

“I knew as long as I could beat him on the first lap, I knew I had a good enough car and I’m a good enough driver to win,” Keselowski said. “Matt didn’t make it easy. That’s his job, to not make it easy on me. He raced me hard; I raced him hard, rubbed a little bit. That’s good racing.”

Kenseth settled for second in his Roush Fenway Racing Ford.

“He should have started on the bottom, for me; unfortunately he didn’t,” said Kenseth, who also denied jumping the earlier restart.

“I knew it was close, but here is the thing: When you get to the second line, they say that the race is on. I knew we took off a little early. … I am waiting for him. … I didn’t even floor it until we got to the start-finish line. I don’t know if he was trying to let me beat him on purpose or what was going on.”

Keselowski said judging the restarts was “too subjective” and that a no-call by NASCAR “was the right call.”

The three Toyotas from Michael Waltrip Racing capped an impressive day by rounding out the top five — a feat that marked a strong return to racing for Brian Vickers.

Martin Truex Jr. led the MWR contingent with a third-place finish and was followed by Bowyer and Vickers, who ran his first race of the season. Out of work since Red Bull Racing closed at the end of last season, Vickers was tabbed last week to run six of the races that MWR driver Mark Martin sits out this season.

He had a strong debut race, leading a career-high 125 laps. In 14 previous races at Bristol, Vickers had led only one lap, never finished in the top 10 and ended on the lead lap only four times.

“When it’s your only one, you have to make it count,” Vickers said. “This was pretty good and it felt really good when we were out there leading. It would have been awesome to hold onto that, but it’s the first time back so I can’t complain about that. What an organization.”

Truex said the showing, and Vickers’ ability to step into an MWR car and post a top-five finish after a layoff, show the strides the organization has made.

“Obviously it says a lot about the cars,” Truex said. “I think everybody knows that Brian is a good driver. He’s more than capable. I knew we had great race cars.”

Jeff Burton was sixth in a Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing and was followed by Earnhardt Ganassi Racing teammates Jamie McMurray and Juan Pablo Montoya.

Jimmie Johnson finished ninth in what is likely his last race for some time with crew chief Chad Knaus. Hendrick Motorsports goes before NASCAR’s chief appellate officer Tuesday, trying to get Knaus’ six-race suspension overturned.

NASCAR punished Knaus and the team because their Chevrolet failed the opening day inspection at last month’s Daytona 500.

Paul Menard and Kevin Harvick finished 10th and 11th to give RCR three cars in the top 11. Harvick managed to pull off the finish despite damage sustained in a seven-car accident 24 laps into the race.

The accident was caused when Kasey Kahne ran into Regan Smith after passing him, and it continued the horrendous start to the season Kahne is having with Hendrick Motorsports. He finished 37th, and through four races Kahne is 32nd in points.

“This is the worst way I could start a season,” Kahne said. “I hate it for everybody. It’s really disappointing and discouraging to have as fast of race cars as I have and not have nothing to show for.”

BRISTOL, Tenn. (March 20, 2011) – Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver Kurt Busch battled to a solid seventh-place finish in today’s Jeff Byrd 500 here at Bristol Motor Speedway. The 2004 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion’s fourth top-10 finish in as many races this season has him in sole possession of the points lead.

“It was a good day for us with our Shell-Pennzoil Dodge,” Busch said after the grueling 500-lap battle had been completed. “We were in good position early on, riding around in third and could see the leaders. We pushed our car hard on some of the restarts trying to get up there and lead a lap. It just didn’t seem we had the mojo to compete. Those guys were pretty tough today.

“Overall, we had a solid day,” said Busch. “We couldn’t adjust on the car as the race got past halfway. That seems to be our struggle. We had another top 10 which is great. We’ll take that. It’s a point-leader type effort. We just want to get up there and try to win one of these things. We’ll keep pushing hard.”

Busch started 20th in today’s race and made steady progress toward the front. He cracked the top 15 on the seventh lap and was up to 10th on Lap 43. A competition yellow on Lap 50 here today due to the tire situation saw the Steve Addington-led team go with four new Goodyears and Busch fell back to 13th for the restart.

By Lap 87, the “Double Deuce” Dodge was back in the top 10. He cracked the top five for the first time on Lap 146 and held a top-five position for the next 200 circuits around this .533-mile oval. The track started rubbering in and Busch had fallen to sixth with 100 laps remaining.

He remained a fixture among the top-10 drivers for the remainder of the race except for a brief period when he overshot his pits on a pit stop (on Lap 430 under the seventh caution period of the race) and fell from sixth to 14th for the restart. Only 15 laps later, he was back inside the top 10 and continued to gain ground until the final laps of the race.

Although Busch never led a lap here today, he did run as high as second-place on two occasions. He lined up ninth for the final restart on Lap 464 and clawed his way up to sixth with 15 laps remaining. A three-car battle for fifth was where the action was on the final two circuits. Busch was on the high line and trapped behind Paul Menard, while Kevin Harvick made the low lane work to his favor and nipped Busch at the line for the sixth finishing position.

Kyle Busch came home the winner here today, with a 0.946-second victory over runner-up Carl Edwards. It was his fifth career Cup win here and 20th career victory overall. Jimmie Johnson finished third, with Matt Kenseth fourth and Menard fifth. Harvick edged out Kurt Busch for sixth, with Greg Biffle, Kasey Kahne and Ryan Newman rounding out today’s top-10 finishers.

“We’ve shown some pretty good consistency so far this season and that’s something our Shell-Pennzoil Dodge Team is very proud of,” crew chief Addington offered. “If we can keep it up, we’re hopeful that the wins will come our way. It really feels good to come out of Bristol with the points lead, but we realize that we have to get stronger to stay up there running with these guys every week as the season goes on.”

Kurt Busch entered today’s race tied with Tony Stewart for the points lead, but Stewart’s 19th-place finish today saw him fall to third in the standings. After four races have been placed into the 2011 record books, Kurt Busch leads the standings with 150 points. Edwards is second with 149 and Stewart is third with 138. Newman also has 138 and holds down the fourth spot, with Menard in fifth with 136 points.

Penske Racing teammate Brad Keselowski fought back from going several laps down early here today and brought his Miller Lite “Blue Deuce” Dodge home in the 18th finishing position. His finish today moved him up to 21st in the points (with 89 points).

The Sprint Cup tour now heads out to Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., for next Sunday’s running of the Auto Club 400 on that 2.0-mile track. This weekend’s Sprint Cup schedule at Auto Club Speedway gets under way with Friday’s practice from 12:00 noon until 1:30 p.m. Coors Light Pole Award qualifying to establish the starting grid for Sunday’s battle is set for Friday at 4:10 p.m. local (live on SPEED-TV). Saturday’s action begins with morning practice from 11:30 a.m. till 12:15 p.m. The final “happy hour” practice session is scheduled from 12:50 p.m. till 1:50 p.m. Sunday’s Auto Club 400 (200 laps, 400 miles) has a scheduled 12:00 noon PDT starting time (3:00 p.m. PDT). FOX-TV and MRN Radio will provide live coverage of all the action.

About Us

Penske Automotive Group, Inc. (NYSE:PAG) headquartered in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, is an international transportation services company that operates automotive and commercial truck dealerships principally in the United States, Canada and Western Europe, and distributes commercial vehicles, diesel engines, gas engines, power systems and related parts and services principally in Australia and New Zealand. PAG employs more than 26,000 people worldwide and is a member of the Fortune 500, Russell 2000, an was named one of the World's Most Admired Companies by Fortune.